Dark Turns (10 page)

His blue eyes shimmered, wide and wild. He pressed his lips to hers.

One techno song blended into another. Nia didn’t like the second one: a clunky remix of a current pop star’s hit with a sped-up country song. It never settled into a rhythm. After trying to gyrate to a few bars, she stopped in the middle of the floor and pulled Peter toward the bar. Water would help ward off any foot cramps.

Peter misread the tug. “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

His hand cupped her side as they walked past the men watching them leave the floor. He strode with one arm propped out, as if ready for a fight. One of the men shouted.

“Wow, look at that.”

The group’s attention snapped toward the bar. Instinctively, Nia and Peter followed their head tilts, rubberneckers beside a car crash. A girl stood on top of the glass counter, her leg stretched out behind her in an arabesque. Long, blond hair hid her face, but it fell away as she tossed her head back to swallow the shot in her hand. Aubrey.

Men hollered for the kid to have another drink, unaware or unconcerned that the contortionist was only sixteen. Aubrey tossed her head like a teenager asking for daddy’s wallet.

Peter turned away from the bar. His hand pressed against her side, urging her to keep walking.

“That’s one of my students.”

“No. Wallace kids can’t get in here. They check ID.”

“No, it is.” She stepped toward the bar. Aubrey dipped into a grand plié that exposed whatever she wore beneath
her mini dress to the crowd of guys sitting below her. The men howled.

Nia knew she had to do something. The girl didn’t have involved parents, and she’d already had to deal with the fallout from a sex tape. Nia didn’t want to stand by while Aubrey put her safety at risk.

Her student took another shot to loud applause. Nia slipped into the crowd. Peter followed.

They pushed through the cheering men. At first, the group parted to let them through. When it became clear they were headed toward Aubrey and not the bartender in the corner, elbows shot out. Openings filled with flesh. Peter bumped against her as some guy shoved him.

“Get back to the cheap seats, dude,” the man snarled. Puffy, veined biceps protruded from the stranger’s short-sleeved black shirt.

“That girl is a minor, dude.” Peter mocked the man’s Long Island accent. “You touch her, you’ll be notifying everyone within a mile of your house for the rest of your life.”

The man sneered. “Might be worth it.”

Peter tensed beside her. He faced the man, hands curled into fists. Nia pulled his arm and his attention back to the bar.

“Aubrey!” She yelled over the crowd. “Aubrey!”

The men towered over her. Body heat clouded the air above. She turned to face Peter.

The music and hooting forced her to scream. “I need you to lift me!”

She turned her back toward him. Hands pressed into her armpits. She grabbed his wrists and pushed his grip down to her hipbone. Fingers tightened around her pelvis. She jumped as he lifted, helping him raise her torso above his head. She lowered herself onto his shoulders. He gripped
her legs. Aubrey performed a deep backbend to pick up yet another shot. Nia waved frantically. “Aubrey!” The screams cut into her throat. “Aubrey!”

The girl made eye contact. She pointed to the door and then dismounted from the counter, wisely choosing to land behind the bar rather than in the arms of the crowd. The men whined for her to return. She pointed at Nia.

The crowd parted for the strange man with the other woman on top of his shoulders. Perhaps they believed Aubrey’s fellow performers were coming to join in.

When they hit the bar, Peter reached above his head to her waist. He placed her on the counter. A few men whooped, anticipating a second act. She quickly hopped down to where Aubrey stood. Backlit shelves of bottles cast a blue hue across the girl’s fair skin.

“What are you doing here? This is a night club.”

Aubrey slapped her palm against her forehead. “Shit. I thought it was book club.”

“We’re taking you back with us.”

Aubrey smiled. “That’s awesome. I took the shuttle bus here and thought I would have to bum a ride with one of these assholes. You two are much better.”

Aubrey grabbed Nia’s arm like they were BFFs. She skipped while Nia strode around the bar toward the safety of her six-foot-plus date. Peter grasped Nia’s free hand and led them through the mix of awed, bewildered, and pissed-off faces. They burst outside and past the doorman.

“The car is this way,” Peter said.

“Nee-aaah.” Aubrey cooed her name as if it were a piece of juicy gossip. “Dating Professor Andersen. Nice. The female contingent of the poetry club is going to swallow a box of aspirin and disappear into the lake.”

So much for avoiding the rumor mill. Nia dropped Peter’s hand. “We’re two colleagues who met for dinner.”

Aubrey stopped walking as if she had slammed into a wall. She released Nia’s arm. “I saw you two on the dance floor.” She winked.

Nia ignored her. “Those men are much older than you.”

Aubrey laughed.

Nia wanted to slap the stupid, smug look off of Aubrey’s face. Didn’t she understand that she’d put herself at risk performing on a bar for a bunch of drunken men twice her age? Did she have an alcohol problem?

“Aubrey, you have to be more careful. When we get back, we can get together with your mom and some people.”

Aubrey kept laughing. “Are you kidding me? I don’t need an intervention. Ask your ‘colleague.’” Aubrey scrunched her fingers into air quotes as she said the last word. “I’m Wallace’s superstar student. I just like to have fun. Right, Mr. Andersen?”

Peter cleared his throat. “This isn’t fun.”

Aubrey yawned. “I’m tired. Can we just go to the car? You guys can debate disciplining me on the ride back.”

The girl inserted herself between Peter and Nia. She wrapped her arms around their waists and walked lock step, like they were all pals headed home from a night of partying. “I vote for spanking,” she said.

Nia wrenched from the girl’s embrace. “That is not an appropriate joke for—”

“What I saw you two do on the dance floor wasn’t appropriate either.”

“You don’t seem to realize how serious this is,” Nia said.

“Yes. Sex is very serious business.” She giggled.

Peter touched Nia’s arm. “She’s drunk. Let’s not stand here and argue.”

Nia marched back to the valet station, Peter trailing her. Aubrey chuckled and skipped behind like they were all on some hidden camera show where only she had glimpsed the boom microphone.

Nia watched Peter pay the attendant to avoid seeing Aubrey’s underwear as the teen climbed over the front seat into the back. Aubrey lay down.

Nia dipped her head into the car. “Are you going to be sick?”

“Just relaxing. Leather feels so good.”

Nia settled into the front passenger seat and waited for Peter to start the car. A streetlight glowed over the parking lot attendant station. Peter stood beneath it, looking handsome, far away, and totally unavailable. Aubrey had killed the mood.

“The leather feels sooo good,” Aubrey repeated.

Nia refused to take the bait.

Peter jumped into the driver’s seat and sped out of the lot. He leaned over to Nia. “We’ll be home in ten. No traffic.”

“Thanks.” She placed her hand over his. “I’m sorry,” she mouthed.

“It’s not your fault.” His eyes rolled toward the backseat where Aubrey gyrated to mental music.

Peter sped through farm country as if fleeing a crime scene. If a drunk teenager hadn’t been sprawled in the backseat, Nia might have believed he wanted to get back to tear her clothes off. But Aubrey’s presence had shifted them both back into work gear. She guessed he simply wanted to return home.

She understood the desire. The lack of sexual anticipation sapped her energy. The wine weighed on her eyelids. Still, she wished Peter would pay some attention to the speed limit. She didn’t want to explain why a teacher and
an assistant were racing home with a scantily clad minor that smelled like lime and liquor in the backseat. She also doubted Aubrey would back them up with the truth.

Peter turned the air conditioning to full blast. He either needed the cold to stay focused on the empty road or the hoped the rush of air would drown out Aubrey’s stream of inappropriate chatter. The girl moaned every time the car hit a pebble. She made kissy faces at the rear-view mirror.

Nia whirled to face the backseat. “Enough. Stop it.”

“Stop what?” Aubrey scoffed. “Don’t tell me what to do. You really think that our five- or six-year age difference makes you so much more mature than me? In a couple years, it won’t matter at all. Why don’t you let me enjoy myself?”

“Because you’re hurting yourself.”

“I didn’t know you cared.” Aubrey leaned forward, shoving her head between the seats.

“You want to save me? There are all these sad girls in our school that cut or regurgitate their food or snarf Adderall because they can’t take the competition at Wallace. Why don’t you save one of them instead of bothering me?” Her arms jutted into the space between the front seats, palms out as if praying. “Go ahead and touch. No scars. I’m just fine.”

Nia returned her attention to the darkness enveloping the car. She folded her arms over her chest. Aubrey slunk into the backseat.

Maybe Aubrey was right. Her tragic past hadn’t stopped her from achieving considerable success. Still, Nia was Aubrey’s RA and teacher. She couldn’t stand back while the girl sneaked into clubs and got bombed.

Peter turned his attention from the road. He whispered. “Let’s just get her to the dorm. I’m tired. I really don’t feel like spending the night explaining anything to Stirk.”

Nia swallowed her protest. Turning Peter into an unwilling witness before his boss might squelch whatever burgeoning feelings he had for her. And for what? Finding one dead teen didn’t mean Nia had to go around trying to save people who didn’t want saving.

Nia again twisted toward the backseat. Aubrey’s face peeked into the glow from the dashboard. Nia met her fierce blue eyes.

“Telling you to respect yourself won’t make you do it. You’re going to have to want that. Someday, you will. I just hope that day comes before you run into the wrong guy.”

Aubrey’s lips spread into a smile. “The wrong guy better hope that, too.”

J
oseph stretched alone on the far side of the classroom, glowering at his reflection in the mirror. An aura of angry energy surrounded him. It warned against approach as clearly as bared teeth.

He’d ignored Aubrey all class—not that the girl had exactly tried to talk to him. Word traveled fast on campus. Maybe he’d heard about Aubrey’s night—or, at least, that she’d left campus without him. Nia wondered who would have ratted her out. She and Peter certainly weren’t sharing a story about bringing back a drunk, underage teenager and then failing to report her behavior to the dean.

Aubrey had surprised Nia by sweeping in five minutes early, arranged like a perfect bouquet of cream and pink, skin rubbed clean, a hint of gloss moistening her lips. She had walked toward Joseph, as usual. He’d immediately
crossed to the other side of the room. Aubrey had then continued on toward Marta, as if the virtual stranger had been her intended target the whole time. She’d settled down beside the girl and said something to make her smile. During class, she’d whispered what appeared to be pointers, resulting in one of Marta’s better practices. Aubrey would say something and the girl’s stomach would tighten in, her butt would lift.

Aubrey had also been extra nice to Lydia. After Ms. V left the room in Nia’s care for stretching, Aubrey had offered to push Lydia’s leg higher to aid with the arabesque. Lydia had eagerly taken her up on the offer.

Aubrey’s helpfulness annoyed Nia. She wanted the teen to be so overtly disrespectful that Battle or even Ms. V could easily believe their prima-in-training’s self-destructive behavior. As it stood, Aubrey’s in-class attitude made the prior night’s events sound like exaggerations at best and fabrications at worst.

Nia glanced at the clock. Two more minutes until class ended. She wouldn’t have to stomach Aubrey’s false alter ego much longer.

Talia struggled with a full split against the wall. Nia knelt beside her and pushed her palms against the girl’s back, forcing Talia’s long legs to spread along the painted cement. “You almost have it.”

The girl grunted as her pelvis pressed closer to the wall. Her breathing quickened. A small “ow” escaped.

Nia patted her shoulder. “All right.” She looked around the room for anyone else that needed her help. Alexei and June gossiped as he pushed a bony knee into her back, forcing her legs into a wider split against the mirrors.

“It’s the lamest excuse. You’re in Claremont to meet with some girl during move-in weekend? I don’t think so.”

“Well, maybe he was. She was killed Saturday evening, right? Her roommate last saw her around four, I think. Saturday night is date night. Theo could have gone to Claremont, even though it’s a bit far. It’s a cute town. It has nice restaurants. The train from the city goes straight there.”

“You are hopeless. If he was there meeting someone, don’t you think they would have come forward?”

Nia moved away from them. She could only hear so much about Theo’s arrest. The media loved the case, but Nia had yet to watch a program that really delved into the facts. Most flashed pretty photos of Lauren and let “experts” pontificate about teenage privilege and rage. To her knowledge, the police hadn’t released an official time of death. But Saturday made sense. Peter had said that Theo’s inability to prove his whereabouts Saturday evening had been one of the reasons for his arrest.

Nia glanced at the clock. The next period would start in ten minutes. She clapped her hands. “All right. Good practice, everyone. Good stretching. See you all tomorrow.”

The students rose from various positions on the floor. They put away their ballet shoes and began shuffling from the room. Joseph went first. He clearly didn’t want to spend any more time in Aubrey’s presence than necessary. Surprisingly, Aubrey followed him. She sped up, squeezed in between the T twins and ran out the door behind him, as if late for a class.

Marta watched, undoubtedly aware she couldn’t slip between the twins fast enough to catch her new friend. She fidgeted with her pointe shoes, bending the front of her foot as if breaking them in, as if she’d never expected to walk out next to the girl with whom she’d spent nearly the entire class.

Lydia, Kim, and Suzanne followed the T twins out the door. June and Alexei whispered as they walked behind. The
boy folded to say something in June’s ear as they entered the doorway. She responded with a glance around the twins’ shoulders and then pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. Nia wondered whether it was about Aubrey and Joseph. Anyone could sense the tension between them. Alexei would probably know why by morning. The boy was a node in the gossip network.

Too bad Theo hadn’t been nice to him. If Theo really had gone to Claremont Saturday—and not the boathouse—Alexei would be able to sniff out someone who’d seen him. But he wasn’t motivated to confirm Theo’s alibi.

Marta finished swapping her toe shoes for navy trainers. She started out the door. She looked thinner now than three days ago. Still not like a dancer, but much less swollen. Amazing how fast the weight came off. When had she had the abortion? Just Saturday.

The realization tingled through Nia’s body like a coming cramp. Marta had been in Claremont at the same time as Theo. He’d been the student she’d seen at the bus stop outside the clinic.

“Hey, Marta, can you wait a second?”

The girl stopped feet from the doorway. She pivoted just enough so Nia could see the side of her face. “Um, I have class.”

“I know. I just have a question.” Nia lowered her voice. Ms. V sat in her adjoining office. The instructor’s door remained open.

“Did you see Theo that Saturday night when—”

“What?” Marta’s eyes darted around the room. She grabbed her forearms and rubbed as though she were cold. “Why would you ask that?”

Nia stepped closer and dropped her voice another decibel. “He says he was off campus on Saturday when Lauren disappeared, and some people are saying he went to
Claremont. You’d told me that you saw a classmate at the bus station that night so you had to walk to a farther one. Did you see Theo?”

Marta’s eyelashes fluttered. She shook her head no. The jitteriness of her movements said otherwise.

“Marta, if you saw him, you really should come forward.”

The girl’s bottom lip trembled. A hinge creaked somewhere behind them. Ms. V had opened her door wider.

“Did you see him?”

Marta stared in the direction of the dance teacher’s room. “I’ve really got to go to class. Can I talk to you later?”

“When?”

“Tonight. Around seven o’clock? When people are at dinner.”

Nia tried to read Marta’s tense face. Had she suggested a meeting because she wanted to confess to seeing Theo or because she feared any mention of the abortion in public? Nia looked over her shoulder at Ms. V’s cracked door. She wouldn’t get the answer now with the dance instructor able to poke her head into the room at any moment.

“I have a choreography meeting during dinner. How about eight?”

“Fine. Eight.”

Marta ran into the hallway. Nia turned back to the cubby where her duffle bag lay and sat beside the stack of wooden boxes.

Ms. V emerged from her office. “Marta was here late.”

“She’s trying hard to get back into shape.”

“And she wanted pointers?”

Nia pulled off her pointe shoes. She examined her toes through the white dance stocking. “She hopes we will give her a few more weeks before we make any decisions about casting the fall show.”

Ms. V frowned. Her skin fell into deep crevices around her mouth, as though practiced in the expression. “I’m afraid that, after we cast, that’s it. She shouldn’t have let herself go during the summer. Dance isn’t an elective. It’s a lifestyle.”

The teacher returned to her office. Nia slipped her fingers in the nylon’s oval opening beneath the arch of her foot. She pulled the stocking back over her toes, exposing her foot to the air. She separated her scrunched toes from one another.

Nia relished the familiarity of the tights and leotard. Dance pants and tank tops didn’t allow the same freedom. She’d run out of clean leggings and hadn’t had time to do the laundry. Fortunately, when she’d shown up to class in the traditional gear, Ms. V hadn’t said anything about it being too revealing. Hopefully, she wouldn’t say anything to Battle.

She slipped the stocking back over her foot and shoved it into a sneaker. She put on its mate and then stood, ready to return to her lonely dorm to eat a solitary salad. Maybe she should invite Peter to grab something with her. He would be awake. He taught that poetry elective on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Of course, if he didn’t want to see her romantically again, suggesting lunch risked face-to-face rejection. She imagined how he would do it.
Sorry, Nia. All of Aubrey’s talk last night made me realize that it’s not wise for us to date. It’s a distraction for the students. But I really like you and want to remain friends.

Nia caught her reflection in the mirrored wall. She admired her long, defined legs and tiny waist, the ample chest pressed between sloping shoulders. She wanted someone to appreciate her body as Dimitri once had, someone who would be excited by the sight of her lean muscles and
what she could do with them. Not Dimitri, but someone like him. Someone more mature. She wanted Peter.

She pulled the pins from her bun. Waves cascaded down her back. She tousled her mane until it took on the unkempt yet done appearance of lingerie model hair. She headed out the door. Maybe Peter didn’t want to see her again. But she’d do what she could to make that hard on him.

Last night’s warmth had melted into a cool morning. She jogged to shake the chill.

The stone buildings of the boys’ quad resembled a fortress. She walked into the grassy square. A few male students rushed across the lawn, backpacks weighing on their shoulders. They were nearly late. First period would start in five minutes.

Nia approached the boys’ dorm. As she ascended the stairs, she realized a flaw in her plan to surprise Peter: she couldn’t open the door and there was nobody around to let her in. She had to phone him.

She dug into her purse. Her fingers passed a compact, lip gloss, and eyeliner, all thrown in last night. She touched the hard plastic of the wallet that held her ID, credit card, and a single folded twenty-dollar bill. Finally, she hit the smooth screen of her phone.

The door flung open. A young man burst from the entryway and shot past her. She caught the door just before it closed.

The inside of the boys’ residence was only slightly less dim than she remembered. A few artificial lights lay embedded in the ceiling like insect eyes. They couldn’t make up for the lack of natural light. She navigated down the hallway from memory. Peter’s room was on the right, just before the hallway ended in a T.

A girl’s giggle echoed somewhere beyond her. The ID rules really did fail to separate the sexes.

A familiar male chuckle answered the young laugh. Peter rounded the corner with a student behind him. The girl looked maybe fifteen, with long dark hair and a body that Nia swore could fit inside her own. Puberty had yet to spread the girl’s hips and widen her torso into anything resembling adult sized. The girl tilted her head as she gazed at Peter like he was a teen pop star instead of an unpublished English professor, nearly two decades her senior.

“When Emerson writes, ‘Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown, / Of thee from the hill-top looking down,’ he is saying that animals are not thinking about how others will see their actions and implying, of course, that neither should we. We should enjoy the beauty around us.”

The girl stopped and tossed her hair. “I totally agree,” she said.

“Now what do you think he meant when he said, ‘Beauty is unripe childhood cheat’?”

The girl’s tongue peaked from above her bottom lip, a deep-thought reflex or, perhaps, another Lolita gesture. Either way, she held Peter’s attention. The girl glanced away while she searched for an answer. Nia met her blue eyes.

The teen almost blushed. “Oh, um, I think my RA is here.”

Nia didn’t know the girl. But she wasn’t surprised at the recognition. A JPEG of her ID photograph had been included in the grief-counseling e-mail.

Peter’s head snapped in Nia’s direction. She became aware that her hands rested on her hips. She wondered whether anything besides her stance betrayed her disapproval.

“Well, think about that, Megan. We’ll discuss next class.”

“I think he meant—”

“You better get going.” Peter stepped away from the student toward Nia. “Class has already started.”

The girl’s tongue retreated. She gave each RA a hard stare and then tossed her head back in Peter’s direction. “It’s cool. I have your note.”

“The note excuses a little lateness, not a missed period. We’ll talk in class.”

The girl’s head straightened from its coy tilt. She raised the book bag strap from her forearm to her shoulder. She strode past Peter.

He smiled. The expression had a sheepish quality. “Hey, you,” he said.

The door slammed. He rubbed the back of his neck. His bicep flexed from the short sleeve of a navy shirt. The color, coupled with the light khaki pants, made him resemble the students. Was that his goal? To appear like just another Wallace kid?

“I hoped I might see you,” he said. “I didn’t get to say a proper good-night.”

“I wanted to ask if you could grab a bite before your afternoon classes. But I can see you’re busy.”

Nia pivoted like one of the Nutcracker’s toy soldiers. She headed toward the door.

“Don’t be that way. That’s not fair.”

Fingers curled around her bicep. Peter pulled her toward him. The pressure of his hand nearly hurt.

“Come on. What? You think I like prepubescent girls?” Two lines cut into the space between his brow. “Poetry class attracts some young romantics, and some of them develop little crushes on the male teacher reciting their favorites. That’s all.”

“You’re hurting me.”